Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of Science is the branch of philosophy that concerns the nature of science in general and the natures of the particular science; physics, biology, psychology and so on. Among the questions in addressed in philosophy of science are: what are laws of nature? what must the world be like for quantum mechanics to be true? What is it for the result of an experiment to be evidence for or against a hypothesis? What are the relations between physics and the special sciences?

At Rutgers there is a group consisting of Shelly Goldstein, Barry Loewer, and Roderich Tumulka who work on the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. Loewer writes on the nature of laws and chances and on the direction of time. Martin Bunzl is a philosopher of social science whose current work lies at the intersection of the philosophy of science and climate change policy. David Albert joined the department as adjunct professor in 2013. He will be teaching one seminar each year in philosophy of physics. Ted Sider joined the department in 2015, and is currently working on questions to do with the metaphysics of science.

The Center for Philosophy and the Sciences at Rutgers hosts conferences and workshops in philosophy of science. Recently there have been conferences on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, foundations of statistical mechanics, the history and metaphysics of laws, and structural realism.

Rutgers is also the home of the "Philosophy of Cosmology Project," which Albert and Loewer direct. The project involves philosophers and physicists from Rutgers, Yale, Columbia, NYU and UCSC. For more information see http://philocosmology.rutgers.edu/

A number of Rutgers PhDs have written dissertations at Rutgers in philosophy of science. These include Nick Huggett (Illinois Chicago), Craig Callender (UCSD), Jill North (Yale), Hilary Greaves (Oxford), Doug Kutach (Brown), Chris Meacham (University of Massachusetts), Barry Ward (Arkansas)